Gauging the Fallout for G4S

The job of G4S chief Nick Buckles is still very much on the line after the security firm’s Olympics fiasco.

“I hope I keep my job,” he said Tuesday, pointing to his track record of delivering returns for the company in the roughly 10 years he’s been at the helm.

G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, had questions raised about its competence to run big projects and saw about 16% wiped from its market capitalization in July after it said it couldn’t meet the contract’s staffing demands for the London Olympic Games, forcing the British government to draft in military and police personnel to fill the shortfall.

Ultimately, Mr. Buckles’s job may depend on whether G4S’s failure to adequately staff the Olympics — and the ensuing fallout — has made the U.K. government reluctant to award it new security contracts in the short to medium term, analysts say. This won’t become fully clear for a few weeks.